One or a pair of exterior rearview mirrors have been used on the sides of motorized vehicles such as motorcycles, trucks and automobiles for many years. The primary purpose of the mirrors was to provide the driver of the vehicle with information about other vehicles behind and on the side of his own vehicle.
Vehicles are required to include such indicators as brake lights, turn signals and hazard indicators. Turn signals, however, are commonly mounted only on the very front and rear portions of the vehicle. In many instances a driver in a second vehicle adjacent a first vehicle may not be able to adequately view the turn signals of the first vehicle due to his relative position to the front or rear of the first mentioned vehicle.
In the last decade, functionality has been added to exterior rearview mirrors to improve the safety of the passengers thereof. It is highly desirable to provide adjacent vehicles with information concerning a vehicle operator's intentions. Providing additional information to adjacent vehicles has been the subject of several patents. U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,948, issued to Bukosky et al. for ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION EMITTING OR RECEIVING ASSEMBLY and U.S. Pat. No. 6,749,325, issued to Bukosky et al. for SIGNALING ASSEMBLY disclose light sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs), and mechanisms for allowing the light to be shaped and seen through the mirrors. These mechanisms project light through a shaped template attached to a semi-transparent mirror. A simple shape such as an arrow or a series of dots forming the overall shape of an arrow are etched into the reflective layer on a mirror.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,943, issued to Roberts et al. for INDICATORS AND ILLUMINATORS USING A SEMICONDUCTOR RADIATION EMITTER PACKAGE shows an exterior rearview mirror including a keyhole illuminator implemented by the inclusion of a high power LED within the mirror to produce light to illuminate the door handle and the keyhole of an automobile door. If the light were instead directed toward the ground, it would function as a puddle lamp.
It is significant to note that exterior rearview mirrors of the prior art that include a light source to project light through the mirror have the light source turned off as the default condition. The light source is then activated to provide information to the operator of another vehicle that a turn is about to be made, or to the passenger of a vehicle that a door of his vehicle has been unlocked and he may now enter the vehicle.
For interior rearview mirrors for motorized vehicles, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,565, issued to Gallmeyer et al. for INFORMATION DISPLAY FOR REARVIEW MIRRORS, a light source within the housing of the mirror has been included to illuminate simple images that provide warnings or information to the occupants of the vehicle to which the mirror is attached.
But given the effort and money that people today spend to customize their motorized vehicles, it is desirable to provide an exterior rearview mirror with a plurality of light sources energized at a first light level during normal operation of the vehicle to illuminate a plurality of multidimensional graphical images. The lighted graphical images can function as running lights, decorative lighting or accent lighting. Also, if the light sources are operated at a second light level (either higher or lower), the illuminated graphical images may also provide a secondary function. It is also desirable to provide an interior rearview mirror that can illuminate a plurality of multidimensional graphical images where the illuminated graphical images function as running lights, decorative lighting or accent lighting.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a rearview mirror for motorized vehicles that includes a plurality of illuminated multidimensional graphical images that function as running lights, decorative lighting or accent lighting.
It is another object of the invention to provide an exterior rearview mirror for motorized vehicles that includes a plurality of illuminated multidimensional graphical images that can provide additional functionality.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a rearview mirror for motorized vehicles that includes a plurality of illuminated multidimensional graphical images that is reliable and readily manufacturable.